Each water harvest requires we row out to find the best salt blooms off the coast of Marblehead.

Our salt is made according to a 1,600-year-old process perfected by monks of Mount Athos, yet prepared using local sea water from the Marblehead coast North of Boston.

We are one of the few salterns on the East Coast of the United States and the only one that uses ancient, monastic saltern methods.

Unlike mass produced salts, ours benefit from a seasonality and vintage that can only occur with small batch salts. Autumn, winter, spring and summer salts are unique in that they have distinct algal, current and saline bloom signatures.

We can also vary the minerality and the salinity within a certain tolerance for our more demanding customers providing a bespoke saline experience.

You may also notice the live taste quality and delicate crystalline structure of our fresh salt that melts right on contact. Because of the freshness of our salt, you can also use less of it which makes it perfect for those looking to cut down on their salt consumption.

Theo, Marblehead's Salty Dog.

"A dog is better than I am, for he has love and does not judge."

-- Abba Xanthios

(an Orthodox monk living in the 4th century Egyptian desert)

Theo grew up on a farm in Virginia, and was a pup briefly in downtown Washington, D.C. where he enjoyed racing around the Old Congressional Cemetery (peeing on Congressmen's graves was oddly satisfying), long runs around the Mall, the Tidal Basin and Cherry Blossoms in the Spring. But now that he has married and settled with his wife Isis (also originally from Virginia) here in a Marblehead, he can't imagine living anywhere else -- and in fact he's going to raise his pups here.

While he may happen to be a canid, he's definitely a person.

Theo takes his position as Chair of the Marblehead Salt Co. very seriously and is dedicated to customer outreach.

Theo has always admired Douglas Adams and wanted to do a little research .... His favorite novelist is a toss up between Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner and Kurt Vonnegut. He also likes Wallace Stevens, Robert Frost and W.E.B. Yeats. He doesn't care for Emily Dickinson and Virginia Wolf (no offense, it is what it is). Right now he's reading a book of sermons by St. Gregory Palamas, a Greek mystic who writes that God's essence is distinct from God's energies, or manifestations in the world, by which we experience the Divine. He's contrasting it with Bob Frost's theories of American redemption and John Micklethwait's ideas of American exceptionalism.

While he's not political, Theo is very understanding, and still waits at the door when I return from trips. Theo is very active in canid rights politics and is working hard to develop a program in Marblehead and Boston's North Shore to make sure pups of all breeds have the educational resources they need to become productive members of their communities -- both human and canid.